"I am not a whack-o!" - 5 hours. I can do this; I'm almost sure! I'm going to buy some coffee and creamer, I'm going to sleep in at least the first day, I'm going to pack, I'm going to brush the dog, I'm going to do alittle chirstmas shopping, and wrap up the out of town presents! It's gonna be great!!! 

La la la la la - lalala - la la - 2 and 1/2 more days! 

Just thinking

I kinda miss summer all of the sudden. Yesterday I was wishing it would snow. . . . today I'm all nostalgic for those frenzied slip n slide days of summer!

4 MORE DAYS - 5 am and all's well. Well, most things haven't completely fallen apart anyway, ...and there is that 4 more days thing going on! Oh, and trying to be the supportive spouse to the laid off husband is by all indications much more stressful than being the laid-off-ee. He's - never mind, I will keep my little supportive mouth shut. OK, I'll just give a short generic "grrr" - and most of you womenfolk will immediately sympathize with me. Caio. 

A game to unite the generations - KERPLUNK! We're not so different after all! Nana Papa came over sunday for a nice relaxing visit in comparison to the previous days pirate party 

Caitlin, Nana and Abi at Caity's 7the birthday 

I'm the "best mom ever!" according to Caitlin; who is the only one (well, 1 of 2) who counts. Last night she was talking to herself, or perhaps her invisible brother Nick, but she was giving a blow by blow of everything we did at the party, and how she loved it, and that Parker said it was the best party ever, and who all was there, and on and on and on! tee hee hee.  

Can't rule it out - OK, the label ADHD was tossed around at Caitlins OT evaluation, which I personally think of as laughable, until today. It's her birthday, and she's been up for hours "helping". It's gonna be a crazy pirate-party kind of day!  

6 more work days until break

6 more days - Oh, and apparently Kevin has been laid off! - That's about all I have to say about that.

What is the Equation?

As fall break comes nearer, for each day that passes I become exponentially more tired, grumpy, have more to get done, back hurts more, and just plain over working. It must start in ernest at 10 days because I made sure I got 7 hours of sleep last night, and I'm exhausted. My first thought of the morning, "how many more days?" and "can I possibly hold on that long?" And it just escalates from here.
But then I have a break, and everything's fine, no one gets hurt.
Thoughts for a Tuesday morning.

C-O-L-L-E-E-N

Changling -
Observant -
Loyal and
Loving -
Enthusiastic
E-friendly,
Nubile? Nutty? Notorious! No. Non-commital? Not no-nonsense. Never ever? Non-conformist. Native? Nudist? Nature lover. Nah, No number needs nervous nelly near. Night night.

(That was the blog assignment of the week if your wondering - haha!)

"We Hung Out" - Star week

"We Hung Out" -Star week -
A thoroughly aggravating experience! On Monday Caitlin brings home a canvas bag with "Lucky" the dog in it, and "Lucky's Journal", oh, and a guessing jar. And Caitlin is SO into this, she's carrying the dog everywhere, the guessing jar is immediately filled with cheerios, (nope, not even enough time for me to start urging her to be more creative), all is well. I remember there is a poster, but do I wing it since there were no instructions, or do I wait? Midweek I look through the back to school night stuff, find it, and very specifically, it says you will get it on Friday, return it on Monday, - oh -, that makes sense, no problem, we'll do it all over the weekend. Apparently she missed show and tell, but again, no problem, Caitlin didn't seem to notice. Friday, Caitlin takes Lucky to school, I tell her not to because "we have him until Monday, so, . . . please mom please, . . . OK, but you'd better not loose him!" I'm sure you can see the writing on the wall already, (I couldn't, but I have very clear hind sight), Teacher made Caity cough up Lucky for the next person.

I find this all out Friday after school. (When I thought I'd be taking pictures of Lucky and Caitlin over the weekend and putting together her poster.) Fast forward to Saturday morning, 6 am. Caitlin is sobbing in my room - what on earth for? "I didn't get to say goodbye to Lucky - you said we'd take pictures - sob sob sob - Mrs. Gray made me give him back". So I ask what exactly happened - apparently there was a bit of a lecture on how she only gets one star birthday week, she can't have him anymore because it's not fair, and Lucky gets snatched back. Great!

There's more. Should I go on? Why not, you only live once. So I'm a good - if not perhaps over-involved mom, so I call the other kid - thinking they live in the neighborhood, maybe we can borrow him for a 1 hour photo shoot. Good idea, they were even home. (Actually Caitlin called by herself while I was still at a meeting which added to the confusion, but that's an aside.) Mrs. Mom does english as a second language I'm guessing. I never managed to ask because she assumed I was calling to find out if her son was going to Caity's birthday party. She probably thinks I was badgering her, poor woman! She's promising me over and over that they'll get Caity a present even though as her son tried to tell C., he can't come to the party. I'm saying no no, don't do that. Yes yes I insist. I finally said thank you and hung up completely defeated. Long story made even longer, we took pictures of "Moo Cow" as a stand in, which Caitlin thought was hilarious, and I've promised her we'll make her a poster of some kind. I'm still going to email the teacher to ask for a copy of the poster-worksheet for our own personal use so as not to infringe on the rights of the current star of the week. Wish me strength as I try to do this without jumping on my soap box about lecturing my child on being fair when she's the one who mucked it up in the first place!. . . and hope that she doesn't peruse blog sites.

11 day count down begins! Now I remember why this is the best job, the ONLY job that I can do! It's the 3 week break with the kids. I was thinking last night of all the different ways I could go career wise, and and I remembered that I've tried most other PT things and they don't work. The missing piece is now to be organized enough to stay in the here and now any enjoy the break. But who cares! I get a break!!!  

Ah, fresh from a New Leader Girl Scout training meeting. Where did my mom put all of my old girl scout stuff? Roberta! Where's my sash - Were's my pin?  

Cawfee Tawk - lovely morning with Helen and Tracey. Now my husband is OUT with the girls. Yes, you heard me. He left the house and took the girls WITH HIM! This is a great day.  

ARRRGH!!

ARRRGH! The girls just helped me make 35 pirate party invitations. What fun! Tearing, sponging messy tea stains, crumpling, even burning! (No, I did the burning myself.) I just sprinkled a little clove spice on them for even more over-the-top-ness! Nighty night.

Look Mom - No hands!

Look! No hands! - It starts already.

What ever make your skirt fly up! Caitlin lives to ride her bike now. I've gotten nothing done since she learned how.  

Anti-Date Night. We had, wait, I had - 6 kids over last night. We trade Saturdays, 2 free Date Nights for 1 payback night (anti-date night). It's an amazingly easy thing to do. I hope we keep it up until they are having date nights themselves. Of course I like to think that time will never come, but that's another story. Today we go to Nana Papa to suprise them with the fact that Caitlin can ride her bike (which of course they already know, but it will still be fun). I get to make the pirate flag for C. birthday. I thought I might have to B&S (break and sew) during the week sometime as I have no machine, but we'll actually get to see them now.  

Good Morning - Happy Friday! That's all I have to say about that. Martha, give me another assignment, I've run out of things to say - (most would find that hard to believe).